My initial gut feel was that this is smart of Adobe, as it opens up their market to many other areas. Although there definitely are overlaps (Dreamweaver / GoLive, Photoshop / Fireworks, etc etc etc), there are leaders in each area, so it won’t be too hard to decide where to go.

The bigger point is that the companies have very different niches. Adobe quickly nailed Print, grew into Web via PDF and some web tools, and even has a group that works on server-side products. Macromedia can bootstrap the web effort.

How important is mobile to the combined company? Mobile is a huge new market opportunity for the combined company. Macromedia has demonstrated significant momentum with key partners like Nokia and Samsung and the combined company will accelerate this new business.

Both companies said the long-rumored acquisition was not to consolidate and cut costs but to help Adobe expand into new markets, particularly in the area of providing content to mobile phones and other handheld devices.

All in all an interesting play for both companies. It will be a delicate merger, with a lot of big decisions to be made. With Avalon coming around from Microsoft, there is even more at stake.